General:
Sound File Formats
Software
Free stuff?
Windows Sound Recorder

MIDI:
Music Setups
Instructional Uses
Example Lesson
Music Examples
Noteworthy

Music:
Acid Intro
Acid Loops

CD Production:
Ideas and Applications
Microphones and Mixers
Recording Digitally
Software
CD Packaging

Sound Applied:
The Web
PowerPoint

Elsewhere on this site:
General Instructional Technology
Presentation/Web
Imaging
Sound
Video,
Home

 
CD Production:

Ideas and Applications

            There's nothing magical about CD's - 10 years ago this entire topic would be titled "Cassette Tape Production" and much of the ideas would be the same.  However, CDs are digital, and hence the side benefit of aiming that way is that the resultant product can be used everywhere a computer is used (on the Web, in a PowerPoint presentation, in a videotape, even embedded in a Word or other document), by simply dragging and dropping a file!  A cassette tape will serve as a fine record of your speech class or orchestra concert, but delivering it to an appreciative audience becomes so much easier if the information is digital!  Even the CDs themselves are easy to copy and distribute, with very little effort and a high standard of quality.  

        Here is a short list of things you can record digitally - some of them obvious, some not:

Music Performances:

  • Ensembles (Band, Orchestra, Chorus)

  • Individual student performances

  • Faculty/Staff performances, visiting artists

Sound Effects:

  • Drama/stage productions

  • Video projects

  • Live sound/video broadcasts, announcements

  • PowerPoint and the Web

The Spoken Word

  • Speech and Drama

  • Poetry/Prose

  • In-class reading (both student and staff)

  • Video voice-overs, recorded announcements

Big Projects

           A few hints on how to best manage possible recording projects, garnished from several years' experience pursuing some big ones:

Be wary of initial enthusiasm, followed by follow-through failure!

 In big projects, timing is everything.  If you deliver quality quickly, enthusiasm will be sustained, and the work will be appreciated.  If there's a month gap between the event and the product, no one will care!  Be prepared to produce one project almost totally on your own, and pump it as an example!

Prep your stars!

 Most kids have no idea how revealing a good recording is - it picks up every fidget and whispered remark, and those "grand pauses" reveal a host of ills.  Tell the kids you have to have dead silence before, during, and after a performance number, even if it's a live recording! Tell them you will take every side comment and boost it in volume until everyone knows who screwed up!

In general, I encourage a special performance just for the microphones - the kids get a taste of a recording session, and you get a cleaner performance!

Fund-raising hints:

 If your big project is a CD for fundraising purposes, the potential return is very dazzling ($3.00 production costs sold for $15 - quite a markup!).  But to make it work, don't depend on your students. Remember: that CD competes for their attention with everything coming from Nashville and LA - they don't see the value of a recording which simply documents.  Best to market directly to parents at open houses or PTA events.

Small Stuff

           It's just as important to do small recordings of sound effects and speeches - kids will hear themselves and embrace ownership of Web pages, PowerPoint presentations, small video projects.

Don't be fussy about quality

 Even though CD/digital sound has a reputation for achieving and maintaining high quality, remember that most sound effects will be played on a 2" computer speaker.  Even PA-delivered dramatic sound effects won't benefit from too much attention to recording detail.  Clean up the problems with software!